According To Hoyt

Book Promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. I ALSO WISH TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT IF THEY WANT TO TIP THE BLOGGER WITHOUT SPENDING EXTRA MONEY, CLICKING TO AMAZON THROUGH ONE OF THE BOOK LINKS ON THE RIGHT, WILL GIVE US SOME AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR PURCHASES MADE IN THE NEXT 24HOURS, OR UNTIL YOU CLICK ANOTHER ASSOCIATE’S LINK. PLEASE CONSIDER CLICKING THROUGH ONE OF THOSE LINKS BEFORE SEARCHING FOR THAT SHED, BIG SCREEN TV, GAMING COMPUTER OR CONSERVATORY YOU WISH TO BUY. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM ALMA BOYKIN: Nominally Familiar: Familiar Tales Book Nineteen

A quiet day in Riverton . . . may be a contradiction in terms.

Ned Oescher deals with a dangerous ruby and dangerous men.

Morgana Lorraine and Smiley review a new Potoo Brothers textbook that just won’t go away.

Mallory Jones and Rosie the giant skunk face a computer mystery (and a system update. On the full moon.)

And more, in this short story set full of magic, courage, and terrible puns.

FROM S.T. GAFFNEY: Facets

Journey through the crystalline surfaces of short stories, that for the briefest of moments , reflect the light and shadows of what it means to be human. Just beyond the brightness of what we know, lurks the shadows of what we don’t yet know or understand. We pretend we stand on solid ground, turn on the lights, and perform rituals to ignore the horrors that surround us. When in truth, the greatest darkness lies within us all. But also, the greatest brightness. Like crystals we hold both. Turn us one way, and we know just how to kill. Turn us another way, and we know just how to love, a love that transcends both time and death.

What facet will speak to you? Rattle your brain, eat away at your heart? Haunt your dreams, disturb your peace? Make you smile, even laugh? Make you promise to live better? Comfort you just a little, teach you how to build a fire to burn away the night?

Come, take a break and read a story. Short stories for those short spaces of time when a novel is too much. Pull away the curtain, take a peek, and see what is reflected in the facets of your own mind.

Facets is a collection of 24 short stories of various lengths for a total of about 69,000 words. Also included is an author’s note at the end with comments on writing and on some of the short stories. They are organized by length, from shortest to longest. These stories do not as a whole fit any particular genre. However, I suppose one could say that most every story has a “strange” aspect about it. I consider myself a storyteller and I find labels only end up being argued about anyway. So, I’ve just decided to use the word “strange” and leave it at that. Some of these stories (not necessarily the same ones) might be enjoyed by those who look for science fiction, fantasy, and/or horror. And I think some don’t even fit into any of those genres. Like I said, I just tell stories. If you end up putting a label to any of them, fine. Just don’t tell me about it. It will most likely only confuse me. And I don’t need any help with that. I’ve successfully confused myself for years already and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

FROM FIONNA GREY: Save the Fate: A Professor Porter Short Story

Three years after becoming the magical protector of Paladin University, Dr. June Porter is ready for the latest adventure…marriage. But it’s just a wedding. What could go wrong?

FROM D. W. PATERSON: Mach’s Mission: Future Chron Universe

Elias Mach had given humanity the stars with his invention of the wormhole drive. In return, he was accused of treason and sentenced to death. Thus began a journey to clear his name, which would take him further from Earth than anyone had dared. And there he would discover the menace that was developing the most powerful weapons in the galaxy. Weapons that would soon be trained on Earth. To survive Earth would need Mach back.

If you like a fast-moving story, characters that never give up, and science with a sense of wonder, this is for you.

“Mach’s Mission” is set in the future (2390s) and is the second novel in the Future Chron Universe. If you enjoyed “Mach’s Mission” consider reading the next story in the series “Open Space” for more Hard Science Fiction – Old School.

See the author’s website futurechron.blogspot.com for more information including a recommended reading order and free stories..

FROM A. W. GUERRA: MOTOWN: THE VAMPIRE MUST DIE: NINJA, SEALS, BELIEVERS: BOOK I OF THE BRUSHFIRE ORGANIZATION SERIES

What do ninjas, devout Christians, and Navy SEALs have in common? On the streets of Southwest Detroit, they’ve had to join forces in order to combat and, hopefully, defeat a vampire infection that’s unknown to the population and that could also end up taking down the planet.

Once the wealthiest city in the world, Motown in this dystopian future is a metropolis laid low by economic circumstances and a seemingly endless series of COVID panics, making it ripe for the taking by the master vampire and his sinister human familiar. Only two of Japan’s finest ninja warriors, four devout Christians – including a Baptist minister and a good Catholic girl — and a supersecret six-man team of SEALs from the US Special Operations Command are left to engage in the ultimate battle against the vampire horde and their human allies.

The fate of Detroit, the United States, and the entire world hangs in the balance because of the vampire scourge, and if humans lose, a nuclear holocaust, imposed on Motown by the US President and carried out by the shadowy Brushfire Organization, could be the end result.

If you like Stephen King, vampires, and the faithful Christians that fight those evil creatures, if ninjas and martial arts combat intrigues you, if Tom Clancy is your ideal for a military story, and the amazing things US special operations personnel do on a regular basis is what you’re looking for, then this fast-paced novel is the one for you.

FROM ANNA FERREIRA: A Summer in Scarborough: A Pride & Prejudice Sequel.

Miss Anne de Bourgh was delighted to receive a letter from her cousin Georgiana, explaining that she would be spending the summer by the sea, and requesting the pleasure of her company. A glorious few months of balls, shopping, and walking by the sea awaits- a wonderfully diverting holiday for Anne, who has rarely left Rosings before.

But Anne is a de Bourgh, and life is never simple. Before long, she finds herself caught between the attentions of two very different men, and must choose if she will follow her heart or disoblige her family. One must be disappointed, and Anne has never been very practiced in the art of disobedience. Must she give up everything she has ever known, will she find the strength to search for happiness elsewhere?

FROM KRISTEN MORTENSEN: Character Tool for Novelists.

I built this guided notebook originally for my own use, to help me create, document, and track characters as I write my novels. It has space to help you imagine and document up to 12 three-dimensional characters, including:

• Names, nicknames, and aliases
• Family trees
• Major life milestones
• Physical features
• Dress/clothing styles
• Personality traits
• Skills, abilities, and talents
• Occupations and finances
• Possessions/properties
• Social identities
• Habits, tics, and pet peeves
• Interests and hobbies
• Conscious aspirations
• Unconscious needs
• Journeys
• Archetypes
• Thematic roles

My Character Tool for Novelists also includes workspaces to brainstorm and list all your novel’s character names, making it easy to keep track of your characters as you dream them up (and to avoid using names that are too similar!)

My attention to character-building is a major reason that I recently won a first place Incipere award for my novel “Once Upon a Flarey Tale.” Characters engage readers. They enrich plots. They make novels come alive.

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: DRUM

What if reality isn’t what we think?

What if we’re not even asking the right questions?

Look, I yield to no one in pointing and laughing when the left believes that their beliefs determine reality and try to do strange-ass things like levitate the mint.

There might be discontinuities (there are) and breaks in reality and times and places where the impossible happens. But whatever it is is, it’s not controlled by human brains, I’m sure of that. Because if each human brain could alter reality at will we’d live in what has been one of the consistent depictions of hell: no physical laws, no directions, everything changing moment to moment: a place where yesterday might be a color and tomorrow a musical note, and where your hunger could be a gale or–

Sure, sure, “but if we all believe” — no. However it works, it doesn’t work like that. And I’ll be honest, I don’t think human minds are in control. It could, I grant, be the sum total of every human mind that ever existed and will ever exist, but a) how would you know? b) I don’t know about you (tovarich) but I know humans. the chances of more than three of the critters agreeing on anything would be– never mind.

One of the short stories I actually liked in Asimov’s around 1994 (?) played with quantum and with the idea that for things to exist they must have an observer. So it had G-d as the universal, ever present observer, and played with the idea of “What if G-d blinks.”

Now, I don’t think that’s in Himself’s repertoire. And I’m not sure he’s at the switch of reality either. (Or at the reality switches.)

Enough people have observed something a little “off” with the nature of reality. So we get things like “We’re a computer simulation.”

I’d take that one a lot more seriously if it weren’t for the fact that every age imagines that reality/the universe is whatever new tech it is impressed with. So, you get stuff like the Elizabethans thinking that reality was clockwork. And in the industrial age, the universe was a factory. And– Never mind. Probably Grog thought the universe was made of flint that Himself chipped to shape.

Also, I’d take it a lot more seriously, if the answer weren’t “well, what difference would that make?”

Which brings us to: there are things that make differences. There are differences all of us have noted. Sure. A ton of that can be bad memory. I’m becoming intimately acquainted with the power of bad memory when combined with ill health. Yesterday for the first time since…. oh…. 2017? I emptied the bottom of the linen cabinet. And Dan said “I didn’t know we owned that vacuum.” Well, I didn’t either. It’s a yellow vacuum, bright yellow. As far as I’m concerned, the aliens dropped it in there. I mean, I might have the vaguest of memories, but it’s very faint.

Then there’s the cleaners/toothpaste/toiletries put under some cabinet and forever forgotten. I probably won’t need to buy shampoo for the rest of my life.

Note it’s particularly bad in this house, because when we moved in I had three warring illnesses/issues all of which were taking the ADD through the roof. So I got stuck in things like “Oh, I need shampoo” Buy shampoo every time I go out for two weeks. Put it under sink. Forget it because sink is too full. Buy shampoo. Put by side of tub. Use that. Forget that shampoo under sink ever existed.

So a lot of what we call the Mandella effect is that. And a lot falls under media malfeasance, such as when Dan and I compared our experience of the climate in the 70s with what the media claims now.

Note a ton of the Mandella effect are things “at the edges” like how you spell a word. Or if someone famous you’ve never actually met has died or not.

The human memory is an uncertain tool. I tend to remember the events of my life clustered around age 3, age 8 and age 14. Usually I find out that age isn’t right. Like I apparently had small pox at 2 not 3. (Almost 3, I guess.) And human attention is an uncertain tool as well. If you didn’t see it, or pay attention, to you it never happened. (Like Pratchett’s character, I can lose my keys in a completely empty room. ADHD is a superpower.)

But still. There are weird and strange and uncanny things that happen to all of us and for which there is no explanation.

Parallel worlds? Perhaps. I mean, I routinely dream I get a phone call from my 39 year old son. The one I had when Dan and I got married four years earlier than in this world. Which would be fine, if the entire family didn’t dream of him (mostly phone calls, though he visits in dreams, too) and didn’t all agree on what he looks like (like younger son, but taller and lighter skinned. And he has blue eyes, which is weird but not impossible in this family.) He’s a gym bunny, and he wears button downs and ties all the time, like older son used to. Oh, and he’s a patent lawyer, which makes perfect sense, if you realize how this family’s minds work.

Would I be very surprised if I woke up (these shifts always seem to happen in the middle of the night) and I had an oldest son who is 39? Not markedly. Startled. Briefly. Then I’d roll with it. It would be considerably worse if I woke up tomorrow and Dan and I had never had kids. That I don’t think I’d get over.

Granted that would be a pretty massive change, compared to other changes that have happened in my life/history, which are usually a little bigger than your average Mandella effect but not that bad.

Like cooking something I’ve made a dozen times, and the guys being bowled over by this new dish they’ve never had. Uh.

Stuff like that.

BTW the weird thing that would lead one to think this is a physical thing, is that abilities port. So, in this one world you learned to type? You can type in this one too, even if you’ve never done it before. I wonder how much that kind of thing is responsible for “naturals.” Anyway, so get all the knowledge and abilities you can.

More disturbing to me are the times reality blinks.

Oh, not literally.

Or perhaps literally. A couple of times. It’s happened twice now, in the presence of younger son once, and the second with someone else (and I can’t remember who.)

This is where I was sitting, and suddenly, reality winked out. For like a micro-second there was nothing. I half expected a giant 404 to show up, and even that would have been relief. There was just…. nothing.

If I hadn’t been with someone, and if we hadn’t both gone “Wow, that was–” and then figured out we’d both experienced the same, it would have been…. I’d have assumed I”d had a stroke or died for a moment or something.

That is not a parallel world thing. That is a “What the heck?” thing.

In the same scary way, and yes, we went for the tech explanation was when I was walking with someone along a downtown area, and we realized we were seeing the exact same cars and people on a repeating loop. Then the other person said “D*mn, the CGI is broken, let’s go home.” And we did.

More parallel universe are the times when things shift then shift back.

Like when I — admittedly with a fever and therefore not fully processing — suddenly found my office in the tower of a seaside Victorian we’d considered buying ten years before. Or like when I heard my family downstairs, including my voice. (I didn’t go down. Eventually it went back to normal.)

But other people experience this stuff too, like opening the door to a known place and it’s different. And then you close and open again, and it’s what you expected.

A lot of this got recorded in our myths of course. And maybe it happens mostly to a peculiar type of person, so it’s easy to classify as “so and so is just fanciful.”

But actually at least myself and some of the people I know who have this stuff happen to them, are not fanciful at all. we tend to try to be rock-hard evidence-and-reality-atuned, precisely because we’re aware of the slipperiness of the whole thing.

Maybe it’s a certain type of brain. Almost everyone who experiences these things are what I call “Gateways.” I.e. creatives who get the product — art or music or writing — whole in their heads and just have to “tune” to it and reproduce it. It’s hard to explain. I can tell when I’m getting static in a novel, and trying to fix it.

Sure, I can write novels whole cloth (A lot of the historical ones, some contemporary ones) but sometimes I think I’m doing that and am stopped with a “No, that’s not what happened. Tune better” only it’s a feeling, not words.

And some of the d*mn things — AFGM! — are dictated. At speed. Very loud and clear, and I can barely keep up.

Perhaps they are transmissions from other places/times/possibilities. Perhaps I have a defective brain not fully in contact with the rail of “reality here.”

Now, does it make any difference? I don’t know. Probably not. I mean we all live our lives forward and in the reality we’re in. I’m grateful and annoyed (Yes, both can happen at once) by my gift to get “dictation” from elsewhen and elsewhere, but really, it wouldn’t make a difference to the world at large if I didn’t.

I mean, other than my potentially ending up with an extra son (And when is he going to get married and give me grandkids? Yes, I’ve nagged in the dream-phone calls even when I’m aware it’s a dream.) And that would probably also make no difference to the world at large. (Well, he’s moving to TX so that might make a difference to some Huns out there. In that world. Not ours.)

Yeah, sometimes unreality seems to break through in a mass way.

My grandmother witnessed “the miracle of the sun” from Fatima. It echoed that far away. No, I still don’t understand what it WAS. And I’ve talked to a number of people who’d seen it, and read a lot of books (some of which led to Deep Pink.) “The sun danced in the sky” doesn’t make a lot of sense. And we know it didn’t happen literally. I mean, it couldn’t.

And I’ve got friends who’ve seen ghosts, or UFOs or whatever. They don’t talk about it much, and the core of it might be incomprehensible. (I haven’t seen ghosts. Well, not precisely. Visits by the honored dead are not ghosts.)

And there have been recorded “mass” experiences of the sort. They can’t all be hallucinations. They simply can’t. But the explanations we come up with make no sense, outside religion, whether it be Catholicism or New Age Woo Woo. And some of these things are clearly NOT religious in any way.

(Someday I’ll tell you about the lady in green, riding an impossibly green car, who knocked at my door, wanted to know if I was nursing, and wanted to see the baby. Oh, and had teeth like a rat’s. If you’re thinking “What the fairies needed a nursemaid?” that’s what I thought too. But it probably isn’t that, or not precisely. Good thing saying “No. You may not come in.” works, right?)

So what gives? I don’t know. Maybe we’re all a holographic projection from beyond the stars (stooooop. Just stop.) Or whatever.

It only makes a difference for two reasons:

What if it cracks? What if suddenly reality cracks for everyone? Because this last year that has started to become scarily plausible.

What if this is an effect/force/event out there we don’t even know exists, and we can figure it out and crack interstellar travel? Okay, I’m hopeful, but you know….

Oh, and a third reason: I’m profoundly aware I’m not in control and things are not necessarily what they seem. So, I try to stick with science fiction, versus fantasy, and keep my mind on the real side of the street.

Because there be dragons on the other side.

Yep, this is one of those posts. Yep, I have guest posts. But I’m not awake enough to read them.

So, do you guys ever wake in the middle of the night, when you can’t do anything, and want to do stuff?

So, that’s what it is….. I need my mind examined. Middle of the night my head is making lists. I think I slept like 3 hours.

This post started as a pondering of conspiracy theories. As we all know, conspiracy theories are broken. So many of them have been proven true, that now all we can do is come up with new ones. And frankly, we’re hitting the realm of truly bizarre and strange ones.

I mean, unless I miss my guess our own government is desperately trying to sell us on UFOs. This wouldn’t be that bad if the current government weren’t democrat (and the deep government always is.) They never have interesting, scientific aliens. Instead they have woo woo aliens, here to sell us on the latest democrat fad and astral projection too. (Why must it always be astral projection?)

From there, I jumped, in the way my mind works (“works”) to the fact that the current bullshit being pushed on us seems tailor made to keep us stuck on Earth, and maybe to make us devolve to a pre-technological level. So, if there are actually superior species, they have agents here working overtime to make sure those pesky humans don’t make it to space and disrupt their great star empire or something.

Now, of course, rationally, I don’t believe that’s true. However, I have a bad track record with conspiracies. I can only see them when they’re obvious such as potemkin campaign = they already have rigged it to win the election, no matter how we vote. And even then I only saw that because I had seen the MASSIVE amounts of fraud in 2016 in a right-leaning area at that (and the fraud was all left.)

So, you know, I don’t believe it. I believe it’s a case of ESR’s lizard people not real lizard people. More on that later. But anyway, I wouldn’t even be surprised. Simply because the facts are so damning.

Look, everything pushed as enlightened or the way of the future since the early 20th century is not only — often — bizarrely stupid, but it seems designed to destroy humanity as a whole.

Let’s see: population must be reduced; we must go back to living “simpler” (reading shorter, more inconvenient lives); women must have careers (not can have, must have) and not raise their own kids; nationalism bad; people must fit into this mold, and can have no individual thought…. and on and on. All of it leads to mass death, destruction and horror.

Weirdly — or not — from the early twentieth century on, most of the big programs, which — with exceptions — both sides of the isle agreed on have been florid disasters. From welfare to subsidies for higher education, to — well, all of it. It consumes more and more tax dollars, and the returns on it are actually negative.

And meanwhile the increase in tax dollars sucked women into the work force making families dysfunctional and cratering the birth rate. (I have nothing against women working. Obviously. But this being the default mode for families with kids is a bizarre “choice”. And as we keep finding out, not a particularly functional one.

Even the things we can all agree on, like racial integration or giving women a shot at jobs got distorted by the top down insane bullshit of quotas and “affirmative action” and actually slowed down the integration already happening and made women…. weird.

And all these governmental rules and theories have now become detrimental and civilization unmaking, or what a friend calls “a war on things that work” now going to a war on the production of food humans actually thrive on.

Of course, I don’t think it’s the lizard people. I think it’s two twin factors. Since the early 20th century we’ve passed the horizon of need. I.e. any famines occurring are engineered famines, created mostly by governments. And at the same time, not coincidentally, knowledge and innovation are accellerating.

I think people in power can’t deal with that. They need to be needed, they need control. And most of them can’t cope with changing technology. Or changing ideas.

They locked into the bizarre Marx-adjacent idea that humans are liabilities, not resources, and the even more bizarre romantic idea that humans by existing HURT nature (because we’re robots or something.) And with those twin principles, how could they avoid hurting people and taking their stuff.

Note that there have been glimmers of hope, when someone dares push back on government’s war on people.

Note also that it’s not all government. It’s 20th century “technocratic” the experts know better government.

Look…. We can’t afford it. They aren’t aliens making war on us, sure. But if they were, what would be different?

We can no longer afford this insanity. In the last two years they’ve proven they’ll destroy civilization and humanity if given half a chance.

Well, we can’t give them half a chance.

Let’s go back to a government when individual right have primacy and I don’t care how many degrees you have, you can’t tell me how to live my life.

Let’s call the technocratic bullshit off. Now. Yesterday. Before they kill us all.

If you went over to Mad Genius Club you’re going to go “uh uh. Sarah is on a tear.”

Yes, Sarah is. There have been a lot of things contributing to this tear. One of them was the superannuated infantile idiot who thinks that working for money is “slavery.” (And yet I would bet you money he claps like a seal and applauds the Chinese slave camps. Because, you know, those irredeemable minorities must be brought into the glorious world of communism, somehow.)

The other one I stumbled upon this morning.

So, I’m reading almost exclusively true crime these days. (Those of you who just dove for cover have it exactly right. When I hit this point I’m profoundly depressed and having serious issues pulling up.)

Most of the true crime I’m reading though is historical true crime, because it’s usually (though apparently not nearly usually enough) free of socialism and bullshit. Though mind you, you’ll come across it in books about Jack the Ripper and the injustice of the people who lived in the East end. Which, if you read it is mostly an “injustice” in the sense that these people are alcoholics, whores and have no self control and yet aren’t given everything, hand foot and help by other people who work for it. I would like every writer of that pious nonsense to realize they are promoting for real actual injustice: that those who choose to be parasites should have the same as those who create the surplus that allows parasites. Or if you prefer, my answer could be summarized with the letters:FYTW.

But today I made the mistake of starting a book on Lizzy Borden over breakfast, and suddenly the red veil came on. This was the entire 1619 bullshit. They claimed the revolution was so that the people of New England wouldn’t be stuck working to furnish raw materials to England “in which there was no future or wealth” and so they could establish the “trilateral trade.”

Yes, I like 1776 too, but we have to remember the musical was written mostly by leftists, so yeah.

Did the trilateral trade: slaves to rum to molasses, and around again, really happen. Sure did. Trade always seeks the route of taking what one place will buy and what one place will trade.

Was it the source of the wealth in the region? Oh, for f*ck’s sake. Only a total waste of skin like Marx could think that wealth wasn’t created, just eternally distributed in a game of f*ck-f*ck. Because that was the only thing his tiny mind and smaller soul could conceive of. Grifters got to grift, and they live with themselves by pretending everyone else is a grifter too.

New England was wealthy because they worked, in a fertile world, in land no one had worked before. The noble savages living here, by and large neither sowed nor reaped. (A few did, particularly in New England.)

They worked their asses off and scrimped and saved more than you can imagine. Yes, a few opened trade routes to Africa and the Caribbean, but it was nowhere close to the main source of wealth. The main source of wealth was factories. Yes, the factories worked with cotton grown by slaves. (To be fair, probably a lot less cotton than would have been grown by free and paid labor. Which is why the North was 100% behind abolition. Smart and ruthless businessmen. Sure, Christian too, so offended by slavery. But slavery makes no economic sense, not once there were better ways to do things. It’s a net drain on the economy. All the slave societies — China, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea — are far poorer than societies of free men. As it was said in the USSR “We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.”

My husband comes from an old New England line. Yes, his grandparents lived very well by the time I met them, but talking to them I realized that event hey, even though coming from generational wealth, had been more provident than we were and scrimped and saved more than we did until they reached a point they could live better. And even then, his grandmother still darned the elbows of their winter sweaters rather than buy new ones, even though by that time they could afford to buy a sweater a day for the rest of their lives and not run out of money.

New England thrift is a saying for a reason. In the same way, btw, there is Yankee ingenuity. They made, they created, they worked. Which made the region prosperous. And btw, hit me if you wish, but the best thing that happened to the South was the abolition of slavery. If the iron heel of segregation and “reconstruction” hadn’t fallen on their necks, they’ve got where they’re now, because taking down slavery freed all the people. (Not that a lot of people in the South were there back then.)

But the idiots with their Marxist pap reduce everything to a round circle jerk of “I exploit you, you exploit me.” There is no new wealth and if you have more than your layabout neighbor, you obviously stole his. Only a mentally challenged infant can believe this.

As for the slaves, well, what you have to remember is that while slavery is an abomination to the Christian, freedom-loving west, it isn’t to the rest of the world. And those slaves could have been killed instead. They were sold into slavery because they had a value. Otherwise they would have treated like mankind’s defeated were, time out of mind: killed. Either for sacrifice (Hello, Dahomey) or for sport, or simply because they were in the way. And don’t cry too hard for them. They’d have done the same the other way, had they won.

But instead, they came to America, where yes, slavery sucked, but eventually freedom was earned at great cost by people of both colors, and now thanks to thrift and ingenuity, to work and the freedom to work, they can live better than practically anyone in the world. (No, I don’t want to hear it. You can take your socialized healthcare and shove it where the sun don’t shine. When Massa looks after the slaves, he chooses if they live or die, and it don’t matter if Massa is a government functionary. As we have proof daily (Hello, Cuomo.))

But what really made me see red and reach for the cleaver was this idiot writer’s regurgitated pap about how the mill workers “made workers work 14 hour days” (What? Opposed to the endless round of agriculture. Only an idiot would say that) and how they “Sowed suspicion between workers of different nationalities so they wouldn’t unite.” Holy mother of shitcakes and syrup. If this is what they teach in schools, the schools should be shut down, the school book writers whipped until the blood runs freely, and the students shaken until they can think again.

Dear idiots: Tribalism is the default mode of humanity. Nationalism is an improvement on that, because at least at times, for limited purposes, you can trust those people over the ridge, with their funny notions, because at least they’re scroladian like you. Even if they cook their Batla wrong.

Humans are tribal. We’re creatures of the band. Throughout our evolution, other bands were danger, and possibly hunters who intended to eat us. No one needs to sow discord among different groups. The miracle of America is that different groups will work together. And they do that because they think of themselves as individuals, not of classes, like that idiot Marx, who never worked a day in his life, thought they should be. Why would you have solidarity with someone else because they do similar work? Throughout most of history, that means they’re competition, not your besties.

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re filling our young people’s head with bullshit, and expecting them to function. This has to stop.

There is work to do if we want to preserve civilization. Young people need to know wealth isn’t pre-existent. It’s earned each generation, sometimes with insane labor.

Young people need to learn no one gets wealth from slavery. Or rather, sure, the communist oligarchs get wealth from their enslaved people, but even they don’t get as much as they would from trading with free people. And the rest of the people are miserable and broken.

They need to learn that all of us have slaves in our ancestry. If you’re going to pay people who were never slaves by taking money from people who never owned slaves, you’re going to end up destroying the economy for nothing, because the pay offs never end. And if you’re going to beat yourself up because our society owned slaves for a brief period, do consider stopping slavery in Africa and China first. Oh, and free poor enslaved Cuba. And North Korea. Not doing that? Then stop giving yourself airs, you useless inheritor of people who bled and died to end slavery here.

And most of all, they need to learn they have to do the work. If they don’t do the work, all they’ll ever be is useless wastes of breath like Marx and his followers, who only product ever is mass graves and unending misery.

Before I start this, may I ask that anyone who wishes to write for ATH or MGC send me a guest post? Make sure you put Guest Post in the subject, though, otherwise I lose them in my inbox, because– well, because I’m juggling about a million things.

The next month is going to be hell, and if I don’t have guest posts, there are going to be a lot of non-post posts.

So–

Now–

I was talking with some friends about the difference between art and craft, and things we only find out we can do in our middle years, or something, when a light bulb went on.

I’ve long been really upset at our schooling methods. Not because they are startlingly ineffective (they are) or because they create a tendency to be conformist to immediate surroundings (they do) but because they create humans with deformed guidance systems.

I first started being irritated by this when I realized that people sending me manuscripts for my opinion asked if I was doing it “correctly.”

I can’t answer that. There isn’t a correct way to do this.

And then I realized this extended to the bizarre credentialism. You can’t write cozy mysteries, because police are trained and know the right way to solve murders. You must trust the credentials. (If you read ANY true crime/investigation books, you realize this is bullshit. The number of mistakes, and paved over stuff is amazing. And yes, rank amateurs an stumble on a solution. Sometimes it’s just seeing things from another angle. Getting the police to listen to you, OTOH might be impossible.)

By the time a bunch of mentally deficient teens invaded my blog to tell me I had to respect their English teacher (who was a disaster at grammar and vocabulary, btw, judging by how she corrected my kids paper) because of her credentials and position, I was about ready to blow my top.

You see, spending 12 years of our lives in schools fosters the idea that not only is there a “correct” solution for everything, but also that someone “up there” in the non-identified credential heaven knows “the right way.”

Most innovations, inventions, and new ways of doing things were created by rank amateurs. And there was no “right” way to do it, until they did.

Public schooling, even before it became all indoctrination all the time, is a killer of thought, of creativity, of ability.

And then it channels kids into narrow paths, and they never know what they could do, if left to try.

Now, when I home schooled, there was a group called Unschool. They just sort of let the kids learn. The lazy man’s way to teaching.

Yeah, that’s perfectly fine, if your goal is to have your kid be able to read basic sentences and do simple math. (Which I’ll add is more than most public school manages.)

I of course got newsletters from all the groups, and eventually decided against them all, because their goals were not my goals. But the unschooling group, bragging that their 14 year old could finally read proficiently didn’t help.

That would be fine if I were raising a farmer, but we don’t have acreage.

Now, the group I wanted didn’t exist.

It used to be kids could read write and do arithmetic proficiently by 10 and might have some Latin and a little bit of Greek. That requires time with them sitting down and working. (Not a ton of time. What I found homeschooling is that in two hours the little sponge absorbed more than in 8 hours days in school. Which is why we went through 3 years of curriculum in one.) And it requires goals. And frankly, like learning to speak, and learning to walk, is probably BEST done by parents. These are basic skills after all, or used to be.

And you know, you’re not letting that kid near any kid of college till 14. So why not let them explore the world of learning after that, so they at least have an idea of what’s possible?

Seriously. I picked a career with no idea what it entailed. All I knew was school.

In the same way, most of us did that.

And that was fine, when the world of the late 20th century was all credentialism and careerism.

However, I think even us, late-middle agers need to unschool ourselves now. There is a great transformation coming, and the only thing I can tell you is that you have to be agile. You have to learn new things, new skills, new abilities. All of us do.

Unschool yourself. And make sure your kids know there isn’t a secret perfect answer to any problem. Some are easier than others, or better than others. But —

But there isn’t A teacher holding the perfect answer. (Except maybe in the moral/religious sense, but that’s something else.)

The future isn’t written. You have to write it as you go.

And we’re all amateurs at life.

There is no cake. The cake is a lie. What’s more, it always was and it always will be.

Last week I was treated second hand — not first, because I’ve blocked the individual’s delusional ass some time back — to the spectacle of a man 20 years older than I arguing in public that having to work for a living is a bad side effect of capitalism, and that “Wage slavery” is in fact slavery, which only exists because the evil capitalists want to step on the common man.

Holy shades of slither-shitting Jean Jacques Rousseau Batman! That is more actual stupid than should fit in a human cranium. In fact, any human brain crammed with that level of insanity should spontaneously explode creating a crater the size of the pacific ocean.

How is it possible to live over seventy years in the world, to read and write, to be in touch with people of various professions and different avocations, to have traveled and seen the world and still come away convinced of the infantile idea that whatever you wish will materialize because you wish it.

I would like to invite the distinguished idiot to go and lay down under Rousseau’s proverbial apple tree and open his mouth wide, until an apple falls in it and chokes him. Though to be fair, he’s more like to die of exposure, insect bites, or pneumonia. Oh, yeah, or of hunger, unless someone takes pity on his complete and utter insanity and feeds him and takes care of him. Which is what he’s counting on.

What he is counting on is a delusion partaken of by libertarians who subscribe to the voluntarianist brand of insanity: If people just do what they want to do with no compensation, everything will work out in the end. We’ll be rich beyond the dreams of avarice. And blessings and glory will be showered on everyone, without anyone having to do anything to receive them.

That is the cake. The beautiful illusory frosted cake that socialism and communism, and utopian philosophies hold out.

I bet you it was what the serpent whispered in the garden. (I find it hilarious that Rousseau used the apple tree as an example of the all-providing bounty of nature.) “Just do what you please, and the world will take care of you.”

Or as a long ago friend (who I think no longer speaks to me because I had an habit of being rude) used to put it “I worked very hard in other lives. In this life, the universe just wants to take care of me.”

Having watched her progression through life, the universe had many names and many faces. It was relatives, friends and casual acquaintances, and people who thought she was going through temporary inconvenience, which couldn’t possibly be permanent, because who wanted to live like that? …. until eventually it ran out.

We are born naked, mewling and weak, with no ability to stand or feed ourselves, or do pretty much anything. Those of us who survive our first week do so because others work for us.

There are pretty strong bonds and instincts, and impulses pushing us to care for a baby. (I read an article, must be 20 years now that said the cats evolved to mimic the signs of human babies, and the gestalt impression of a baby, which then caused humans to look after them.)

However, unless you’re extremely generous, or morally impelled to do so, no one is going to pick up a baby not their own and look after their every need because they like doing so.

Look, I’ve looked after babies not my own, human and cat and on a singular occasion, a rabbit. I did it because I believe life is precious and worth it. I did not do it because it was enjoyable, and I liked the process.

Looking after babies is bad smelling overflow at both ends, and unending drudgery. You do it for love, and you do it for conviction. No one does it for fun.

“But you see, Sarah, people do that for free.”

I waggle my hand at you. Sort of. In the case of human babies there is usually a non-verbal contract that you look after them and eventually they’ll look after you. But that’s neither here nor there.

This is exactly where these half-cocked lunatics get the idea that someone or something should look after them forever. That they’re entitled to have every need met, as they did when in their cradles.

Hell. In most cultures throughout the world until the Christian era, even babies might not get those needs met. Until people believed that each baby was specially created by the hand of the Most High and therefore precious in and of himself, they stood a good chance of being drowned in the slops pail and taken out with the trash, if the family already had all they wanted or simply was not at home to a baby girl.

The adult-infants shitting in civilization’s cradle and blaming “capitalism” for not getting the pacifier of their preference shoved in their greedy mouths need to grow up.

Until our rich, sassy and frankly stupid era, most people’s working life started at two or three. And before these reticulated imbeciles start talking about capitalism: that is through the extent of humanity as far back as we can tell, back to primitive tribes who had never heard of money; back to isolated communities where money did not apply.

We have letters written by colonials in the US (and btw, anyone who thinks colonialism is white supremacy and “easy” is invited to spend a month — just one — living as these people did) talking of their two, three and four year old children doing tasks that in our day and age we’d be hesitant to entrust to a ten or fifteen year old, from feeding the livestock to caring for cows.

I know in my mom’s day by the time you were five you were looking after your younger siblings, and might be making food (over an open fire) to free your mother to do enough work to keep the family afloat.

Yeah, I know, I know “Capitalism.” My sore ass.

Most of human history, since our species, metaphorically speaking, emerged naked and squalling onto the Earth there hasn’t been enough to go around: Not enough food, not enough time, nor enough strength, not enough covering against the cold, and certainly not enough rest. To keep a family fed, the entire family worked. And it was brutal and relentless work morning to night.

I love the fact that the neo-Rousseauneans, primitive fantasist edition, look at the graves of the neolithic and tell us before agriculture these people lived wild and free. Each did what they wanted. And they had no disease, no–

No life. They died young and often brutally. At 58, I’d look to them like an impossibly ancient human. And not having scars, broken bones, and being relatively well fed, I’d look to them much younger than I am.

Shakespeare is estimated as having died at my age “old and full of years” and btw the Elizabethans were already, compared to the history of the human race, already living high off the hog.

This same idiot, btw, who thinks wage slavery is still slavery also is convinced that humans always lived about as long as they do now. Sure. In some very prosperous pockets. In certain places or classes in the world. It seems that the extent of our genetic longevity is somewhere around 120 if everything goes just right for us. But you know, those last twenty years you’ll be like the infants and depend on the love and kindness of those around you.

For most of human existence upon the Earth, reaching sixty was a fabled dream. Sure, the statistics we have include a lot of infant death, but dear bog, it wasn’t that long ago or faraway that, as a kid in a relatively (and by historic norms astonishingly) well off village in a not barbarous country, when someone died at sixty there was a shrug and a “he was old.” I was 14 before I met my first 80 year old. There simply were none around. (And that 80 year old looked worse than my dad who is now 90.)

Most people died relatively young, of horrible stuff. And remember I was born after the advent of antibiotics (without which I wouldn’t be here and writing this at you. In that universe I died somewhere around 6 of tuberculosis.)

Sure. “Everyone does what they want, and we will all be provided for.” We have it now. Or we did, before these mind-wiped gapeseeds came onto the landscape. It’s called free trade and a money economy.

Heck, it might be the greatest invention of the human mind.

Look, as anyone who has lived in a commune, or even gone on vacation with a handful of close friends knows, there are always people ready to eat. There might even be enough to cook (for a definition of cook) but no one ever wants to wash the dishes.

In the same way, while I know people who dig ditches (or furrows) for fun, or who enjoy fixing cars, I don’t know a single human being who cleans septic tanks for a lark, or who irons clothes for eight hours a day, or who–

Hell, even the things that are fun — I confess to a weird love for painting and fixing furniture — aren’t fun if you do them day in, day out, eight to ten hours a day. Look, I love writing. And I’m lucky enough to make enough from it that it constitutes “making a living.” It’s not a great living, mind you. And it’s insecure. Most years I make somewhere between 30 and 50k. I don’t remember what letter that makes me in the Correia author alphabet. But there is always a year or two, often when we can least afford it, that I make 10k. Or 5k. Or a few years ago 2k. So without a husband who has a regular income, I’d be in serious trouble.

Ah, but that’s the inherent issue of the capitalist system, idiots would bleat. I should have everything I want to live, and then if I felt like writing, I would.

There are only two problems with this: I might not feel like writing anything others wanted to read; and I certainly wouldn’t do it with any degree of assiduity. Certainly not enough to develop my craft so that what I produced was readable. And I don’t think I’m the exception. I’ve seen trust fund babies, and other fully-supported writers, and 99% of the time, they go nowhere.

And keep in mind what I do is only of value to a highly wealthy society that has leisure time to day-dream in other worlds.

But the incentives are the same as for the person who farms wheat or cows, or for that matter grows apple trees. If they had everything they needed, they wouldn’t work every day. Just when they felt like. Which means we rapidly, all of us would stop having everything we need.

You can say what you want about the inequities of wealth distribution. I have my own views on it. I’ll note that fields dominated by leftists are always the worst for exploiting workers.

However most of the time, when people complain about wealth distribution or disparate payment for work, they aren’t seeing the whole picture. Like the idiots who say doctors should be paid like teachers: they have no idea what’s involved in the training of a doctor, nor of the hours doctors work, when fully formed, nor of the responsibilities and pressures weighing on them. If they did, they might realize most doctors aren’t even particularly well paid (particularly when you take into account malpractice insurance. If teachers had to pay malpractice insurance, they’d have to pay to work. Particularly if we sued them for malpractice. (I have a list.))

Ultimately what those complaining of wage slavery are saying is “I want the world to look after me.” And when they get power they make everyone else slaves, and do away with those that require care, and take us all back to a brutal primitivism all so they can stay adult babies, mewling and puking their death cult philosophy.

The cake of communism/socialism is a lie. It’s stuffed with mass graves and worms and lives of misery, beneath the glittery frosting.

It put 100 million human beings in their graves in the 20th century alone. Let’s not give it another try. This has been tried, over and over. It’s impossible. The result is always death at the hands of the greedy psychopaths who resent us for not catering to their every need real and imagined.

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

*A couple of notes:
A) Doing a promo site for “friendlies” is still on the program, but was interrupted by looking for a house and now by “moving madness.” Expect something around October/November, when I will ask people if they want to be included. Etc. We’ve actually done the site design, now it’s just time to put it up…. so two or three months. (The problem isn’t packing and unpacking. We’re good at that. It’s getitng people in to do stuff like painting and fixing.)

B) Sorry this is so late. WordPress has developed a new “cute” trick, which involves not selecting what it says it has, not giving me buttons for linking, etc. ARGH. WPDE. That’s all. – Sarah*

Book Promo

If you wish to send us books for next week’s promo, please email to bookpimping at outlook dot com. If you feel a need to re-promo the same book do so no more than once every six months (unless you’re me or my relative. Deal.) One book per author per week. Amazon links only. Oh, yeah, by clicking through and buying (anything, actually) through one of the links below, you will at no cost to you be giving a portion of your purchase to support ATH through our associates number. I ALSO WISH TO REMIND OUR READERS THAT IF THEY WANT TO TIP THE BLOGGER WITHOUT SPENDING EXTRA MONEY, CLICKING TO AMAZON THROUGH ONE OF THE BOOK LINKS ON THE RIGHT, WILL GIVE US SOME AMOUNT OF MONEY FOR PURCHASES MADE IN THE NEXT 24HOURS, OR UNTIL YOU CLICK ANOTHER ASSOCIATE’S LINK. PLEASE CONSIDER CLICKING THROUGH ONE OF THOSE LINKS BEFORE SEARCHING FOR THAT SHED, BIG SCREEN TV, GAMING COMPUTER OR CONSERVATORY YOU WISH TO BUY. That helps defray my time cost of about 2 hours a day on the blog, time probably better spent on fiction. ;)*

FROM TIMOTHY SCOTT ROACH: Momma, May I Have the Moon?

“Momma, may I have the moon?”“Oh, my dear no! It would never fit in your room.”On the surface, this book is about unobtainable dreams and fanciful things, but if you look a little deeper you will see it is something else. A problem is presented and the reader is challenged to use his or her imagination to come up with a solution. This is engineering at its purest level — a level as accessible to children as it is to adults. Children naturally think outside the box, because for them there is no box. See what ideas your child can come up with to reach the moon and then draw and submit them for a chance to be in future editions of the book.

FROM C. J. CARELLA: Guilds at War: The LitRPG Saga Continues

A Battle Between Immortals

Hawke Lightseeker leads an expedition to the city of Akila, planning to confront Kaiser Wrecker and his guild. But the Nerf Herders are only one of many threats lurking in the Imperial city. Hawke and his friends soon become embroiled in a conflict with ancient Undead and deceitful Sidhe. And Kaiser has more than a few surprises for his hated enemy.

Guild at Wars continues the LitRPG series that began with Twilight Templar. Character progression, new levels, skills, magic systems and Mana cultivation all play a role in the story, along with drama, action and adventure.

FROM S. T. GAFNEY: Facets

Journey through the crystalline surfaces of short stories, that for the briefest of moments , reflect the light and shadows of what it means to be human. Just beyond the brightness of what we know, lurks the shadows of what we don’t yet know or understand. We pretend we stand on solid ground, turn on the lights, and perform rituals to ignore the horrors that surround us. When in truth, the greatest darkness lies within us all. But also, the greatest brightness. Like crystals we hold both. Turn us one way, and we know just how to kill. Turn us another way, and we know just how to love, a love that transcends both time and death.

What facet will speak to you? Rattle your brain, eat away at your heart? Haunt your dreams, disturb your peace? Make you smile, even laugh? Make you promise to live better? Comfort you just a little, teach you how to build a fire to burn away the night?

Come, take a break and read a story. Short stories for those short spaces of time when a novel is too much. Pull away the curtain, take a peek, and see what is reflected in the facets of your own mind.

Facets is a collection of 24 short stories of various lengths for a total of about 69,000 words. Also included is an author’s note at the end with comments on writing and on some of the short stories. They are organized by length, from shortest to longest. These stories do not as a whole fit any particular genre. However, I suppose one could say that most every story has a “strange” aspect about it. I consider myself a storyteller and I find labels only end up being argued about anyway. So, I’ve just decided to use the word “strange” and leave it at that. Some of these stories (not necessarily the same ones) might be enjoyed by those who look for science fiction, fantasy, and/or horror. And I think some don’t even fit into any of those genres. Like I said, I just tell stories. If you end up putting a label to any of them, fine. Just don’t tell me about it. It will most likely only confuse me. And I don’t need any help with that. I’ve successfully confused myself for years already and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

FROM C. CHANCY: Gateway to Fiction.

Do the Research, Keep the Shiny! A writer’s guide. Want a good story? Choking on yet another sparkly cinematic production that has all the flash and explosions yet no real people in it? If you want stories done right, sometimes you’ve just got to do it yourself. But how? Roll up your sleeves, we’re going to cover it all. No preaching; no “but thou must follow steps X, Y, Z”. Just, here’s some ideas, and some examples, of how it can work. From getting over that first hump of pen to page, through getting ideas and characters from point A to point B, all the way to how to keep breathing when the whole world’s crumbling in. There are links. There are tropes. And there’s a sober explanation of why fanfic has always mattered. In your mind’s eye there’s a world no one else has seen. Here’s some tools. Worldbuild away!

FROM TIFFANY GRAY: Hazardous Magic: A Terran-Subterran Story

Ace “Demon” Anshelm was a Terran; a born “Top-Sider”. The government required you to differentiate on your paperwork now, since the all the Subterran races, including giants, sidhe, dwarves, humans and other magical creatures of legend, had emerged from Antarctica. Demon would rather be piloting than almost anything else, but after getting out of the Air Force and trying to go solo, his luck ran out and he lost everything. He was about to give up on independent piloting when a recruiter approached him from Haz-Mag Inc. Fly hazardous magical cargo from place to place and make lots of money was the sales pitch.

After two years of flying for Haz-Mag Inc he was still impressed with the company and their security, but he was especially impressed with the planes; all new and all top of the line. Even so, with nagas, gremlins and pixie-lizards on this flight he had to ask himself, if it was worth it. Afterall, how bad could flying hazardous magical cargo be?

FROM BERNADETTE DURBIN: Minstrel

When a heroine in peril disguises herself as a minstrel to escape her treacherous, wrathful brother, she finds herself on a series of unorthodox adventures that raise from lowly minstrel to king’s advisor.

FROM J. ANNE CAMPANILE: Pride and Poor Judgment.

Her pride, his prejudice, and astoundingly poor judgment.

Winter Darcy has her priorities straight: protect her best friend, reconnect with her brother, and survive senior year. Boyfriends? Crushes? Not in the plan. But life hasn’t cared about her plans in the past, so really, she should have expected the Bennet brothers.

John is a threat to her best friend, Charlie’s, recovery. Elliot is Darcy’s personal stumbling block. And then there’s Darcy’s brother, who hasn’t spoken to her in months. Her life is scattered, but her heart is in the right place.

Fresh, funny, and achingly relatable, this gender-flipped Pride and Prejudice follows Darcy’s socially awkward exploits in love, friendship, heartache, and learning that she’s not always right.

FROM GEOFF WIDDERS: KURT LANGER: NEMESIS OF TERROR.

The Islamic terror cell that was annihilated by the 74 year old Vietnam veteran had a target in its sights compared to which the World Trade Center paled into insignificance. Authorities have given the figure of 50,000, it might have been more.

This book seeks to set the record straight regarding Kurt Langer. He had fought terror in all its forms, from the jungles and deltas of Vietnam, to the Anatolian plains of Turkey, to the NW Pacific coast of the USA. Terror had always come off worse.

His wartime experience had left him disturbed. He was a casualty, one of the walking wounded. He added a terrible stain to his life with the planned killing of an off-duty policeman.

The Islamic jihadis, kayaking stealthily for weeks towards their target could never have imagined that the old warrior, ‘released back into the community’; would destroy them.

His interception of the terror cell was his redemption. The world would call him a savior.

FROM R. D. MEYER: Schism.

A single spark. That’s all it takes to ignite an explosion if the conditions are right.

Today in America, conditions are right for an inferno to engulf our nation. We no longer discuss; we screech. We no longer tolerate; we cancel. We no longer agree to disagree; we end relationships that have lasted years. In short, American society is on the edge of an explosion.

Schism is about all of our anger, all of our political rage, coming to the surface in a Second American Civil War. However, this one doesn’t divide us by northern states and southern states, but rather by liberals and conservatives, urban and rural, reds and blues. Spurred on by blog posts, news reports, and protests each side seems to participate in more out of opposition to the other side than any real principle, conditions for the spark grow more and more precarious, priming the pump of hate.

Beginning as what seems like a black and white case of terrorism, events morph into a political struggle over who steers the reins of power. One man seeking justice for his family spins out of control and drags our nation into the abyss while the loyalties of friends, neighbors, and even families are tested against the partisan rancor that pervades society.

Once events explode into a self-sustaining fire, cities burn. Journalists from varying outlets are executed for everyone to see. Power plants are shuttered to cut off each side from the energy our country has become so dependent on. And the whole time, as America is paralyzed in a struggle with itself, an ambitious military officer watches from across the ocean…

FROM ALMA T. C. BOYKIN: Intensely Familiar.

Home is the Hunter . . .

Something moves in the darkness, hunting the hunters. An ambush leaves Lelia Chan weak and troubled. Her husband André returns from an extended deployment with problems of his own, some old, some new. Both shadow mages and their Familiars need rest. Their enemy, however, does not.

Magic solves magical problems: that’s the rule among Riverton’s magic users. But what if it doesn’t? Especially against a foe who is Intensely Familiar.

FROM NATHAN BISSONETTE: Kobold and Centaur.

Worst Prom date ever. Steph only went with Sam because nobody else asked her. Besides, it’s just for Prom, right? It’s not forever. But that was before the little man with pointed ears handed them enchanted scrolls that sent them out of this world. Now she’s stuck far from home in a different body. Can Steph and Sam make it home in time to save the Earth without getting killed? Or killing each other? And what about the Prince?

FROM LEIGH KIMMEL: Starlight Running

Eight lives depend on Kyle’s desperate trek across the Moon to get help. But someone — or something — intends for him to fail. Can he defeat it in time?

Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

So what’s a vignette? You might know them as flash fiction, or even just sketches. We will provide a prompt each Sunday that you can use directly (including it in your work) or just as an inspiration. You, in turn, will write about 50 words (yes, we are going for short shorts! Not even a Drabble 100 words, just half that!). Then post it! For an additional challenge, you can aim to make it exactly 50 words, if you like.

We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Your writing prompt this week is: Land

Yes, you are allowed to speculate on what I’m writing this morning. It’s in the Schrodinger Universe, so really, it could be anything. But yeah, it is a desperate last stand….

I’m sounding the tocsin: This is not a drill. If this were a drill you would be required to do nothing much. But if this were a drill, you wouldn’t be waking up in cold sweats, or having that feeling like you’re living through the last days, or…. Whatever is afflicting you particularly. Now, keep in mind I mostly work with and have contact with people who are in the arts, meaning we’re so high on the neuroticism scale that you can see us vibrate on a clear day with nothing much going on. But never mind that, I think in a way we’re like the alert system. Like people in high Earthquake areas who keep something sturdy balanced so the least tremblor will make it fall onto a metal sheet or something, so they have early warning to get out of the house, in case it’s a foreshock.

Sure, sometimes mini Earthquakes come to nothing, and then you ran out of the house, for a few minutes/an hour and came back in looking sheepish. But sometimes– Sometimes they save our life.

Me and my cohort we’re like that. When we start getting nervous, it’s time to prepare for something. Maybe your preparations will not be needed, but boy oh boy, if they are–

And right now we’re all waking up with the horrors. (I’m relatively calmer, mostly because I’m concentrating on my preparations, my sauve-qui-peut which involves getting the heck out of here and the house sold before– Well, before.

Most definitely not a drill. But what it means and what you need to do might not be what you think you need to do, so let’s go over it in order, shall we.

What’s coming: We don’t know what’s coming. We don’t know if it will be fast or slow. I’ve been betting on fast, because fast has less chance of going in directions we like even left than the leftist dreams, but seriously, we don’t and cant know. We can pray is about it.

And yet it is our duty to prepare.

Keep in mind most of you will be safe. No, seriously. Take it from someone who’s lived through this. You can live and work in dangerous places and still be completely safe. Just for the love of heaven, if you see a group of people behaving like lunatics run/drive/walk the other way.

Now what this situation reminds me of is when half of Colorado was burning, a twelve years back or so. We took ourselves from (more smokey) Colorado Springs to Denver for a weekend with the kids. And we were in the IMAX in the Natural History Museum, when the fire alarms went off, and we could smell the smoke in the air.

As people started getting up, someone came in and announced that while the museum itself was not on fire, and was safe, there was a fire close enough by that it was setting off the fire alarms.

We watched the rest of the movie, but I can’t say I paid much attention, and came out to a sunset made dark and ominous by the smoke, which was thick enough to cut.

We never did get touched by those fires, or event the one that Dan drove by on the way to work, close enough to hear it crackle.

In fact, in my years in CO I’ve been on “Standby for evacuation” three times, but it never came. However for a lot of people in the area, it was destruction of property, loss of life, utter change and horrible mayhem. And even those of us untouched, like me, ended up with health issues that dragged on for a decade or more, from the smoke.

But it wasn’t “we’re going to burn alive.” And in retrospect, had I known it, what we should have done is what a friend recommended and pack up everything and head for TN for six months. But we didn’t want to leave things to burn and well– That is what it is.

So now, before everyone can smell the smoke: get to high ground. Whatever high ground means. Keep in mind even in a blue state most areas will be safe. You’re at higher risk of truly deranged regulations leaving you unemployed/broke/with no electricity. Which is part of the reason for our leaving. Besides the fact I’m so “public” I practically glow in the dark. On top of which — and more urgent — the altitude is killing me by inches. So, moving.

But if you think your area will be a problem, move now. You’re late and it will cost you. I get a feeling we’re about on the last viable train out of danger, but maybe there will be another year grace (what husband thinks. He’s an optimist.)

Most of this are things you know, okay, the same preparation you’d do for a prolonged outage, say in the aftermath of a major Earthquake or hurricane. Freezer. Fill it. Get a backup generator. It’s possible to keep things frozen a long time if you don’t open it, and run your generator a few hours a day.

Other food. You know how hard it is on your dietary needs. I don’t.

Try to move to where medical care is available, and find a sensible doctor (and that will be hard.) Try to take care of any surgical or other needs you have now. If not sooner. If you’re planning on children, now is a great time to get pregnant, provided you’re in an area with medical practitioners. In two or three years…. well… either the structure will be in flux or even weirder. And just in case, find a midwife you’re comfortable with, too.

If you’re medicine dependent investigate how to get it, and how to store it. Also lay in some anti-biotics and pain killers (non opioid. Like massive bottles of tylenol.) because it might help. Oh, and please also vitamins and such.

Establish or polish up your network of like-minded friends you can trust. Local, sure, but also on a line to get from point A to point B if you need to skedaddle. To that end, identify your “will not abandon” possessions and have a plan to get them ready and go. Note this is unlikely for most people, but it could happen, so be ready. Have containers for whatever you’d take. FYI if you have animals have carriers. ALSO FYI if you have cats, small dog kennels with a tiny litter box and food dish work great for multi-hour trips in the car.

Find through your contacts people who can do stuff you will need, like car repair, or house fix ups, in case those networks are hard to reach. Knowing someone who knows someone is the way things are done in most countries going bonkers.

“But Sarah, you said they can’t win.”

Sure. I did. And they can’t. because what they are trying to impose on reality can’t work in reality. They’re kind of like the guy who calls up Cthulhu not realizing that not only will it eat him first, but it can’t survive in our reality.

Again, for the slow of mind: No, America can’t go communist and stay communist forever. Because if it does, the rest of the world starves. And so do we, in double quick time. And we’re too spoiled to take it. Also, the arrant idiots in charge have no clue of how complex and difficult this country is, though I think they’re starting to get a sense for it, as they try to pull their “infallible lockdown” trick twice. Because, yes, they’re that stupid.

WE ARE THE COUNTRY THAT FEEDS THE WORLD. We’re also the “universal buyer.” If we hit even a rough patch, everyone else starves. Which is what’s causing unrest all over. We’re on the verge of a rough patch and they’re getting horribly pinched. (Which is why this fight is global.)

Also we’re too distributed, and enough remains of local rule that the idiots can’t do what they think they can. That they still think they can is obvious as they bark orders that no sane person would expect obeyed. But that’s because they’re stupid and provincial and think the entire country is their tiny neighborhood.

What they can do is create a mess like nothing you’ve ever seen.

They are already largely being ignored. They can’t stand that, so they’re going to kept ratcheting up the crazy, which is going to destroy a lot of our structure.

For instance, several GOP traitors in the house have voted to pass the infrastructure bill which would destroy our voting system, since they folded the For The People bill under it. (Or a lot of its provisions.) What they think will happen but mass unrest, and the splintering of localities, I don’t know.

The problem is that though our institutions are corrupt and buckling, if you destroy the whole thing at once, it’s going to be insane for a while. I’ll remind you they’ve captured everything from certification boards to regulation boards. This means some parts of the country won’t understand the other half, and frankly for a while it will be a time of great terror and opportunity, just on the every day level.

And if you destroy it piece-meal there’s the potential of a just as bad but slightly more viable regime creeping in.

And that’s what we’re looking at you know? Fast or slow?

I’m hoping for fast, because American ingenuity will step in. If slow…. well, look, FDR never got it all his way. But the corruption that crept in we’re dealing with right now. Plus at the level of stupidity these buffons de derriere are pushing, it will only be slow in some areas. Others will collapse hard and fast and possibly on fire. And there’s no telling how difficult that will be for the sane areas. We are linked and interdependent.

I think it’s going to be fast, because these people are not FDR. Frankly, they’re not fit to wipe the coals off FDR in hell. So they’re pushing too far too fast and too divorced from reality. On top of which they’re panicked. And they’re not geniuses when not panicked.

Oh, maybe the museum is just filling with smoke from a nearby fire, and we’ll be fine.

But I’m sounding the tocsin, just in case. This is no ordinary danger. Get serious about getting safe now, if not last Wednesday.

This is the sauve-qui-peut.

In the end we win, they lose, but getting there will entail extreme discomfort for most people and high danger for a few.

Be not afraid. But be not an idiot either.

Go and make everything fast against the Earthquake.